SO DELICIOUS

KNITTING NEEDLES W/ POLYMER KNOBS & HAND DYED YARNS

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

doweling, polymer clay, clear nail polish, food dyes & wool yarn

Meet Rachel Kannampuzhz and her yummy colors her has created with food dyes and Polymer clay.

She is the other lone ranger in my 2nd year 3-D class.

In Period 3 this year I have thirty 3-D beginners and Rachel.

She was one of my top 3-D beginners last year

 and I was delighted to get her back into the fold this year for the Intermediate class.

Her first assignment was to make her own knitting needles out of doweling

with coping saw, sand paper and wax for her needles,

and to sculpt knobs from Polymer clay.

At the same time she was also required to mix up several colors of food dyes

to dye her wool skein with,

and to make sure those colors would flow visually when knitted together at a later date.

I've got 2 shots of her knobs.

I like the top one the best for the rose forms she made,

but even with color correction I couldn't show the real colors until I took another photo below.

I look forward to sharing Rachel and more of her pieces in the coming months.

She astounds me on every assignment with her critical thinking skills,

especially when she works most of the period without my guidance 

because I'm being pulled in 30 different directions by the beginners.

Thank you Rachel for your constant understanding and patience.

INTRODUCING MY MAD SCIENTISTS

HANDMADE KNITTING NEEDLES & HAND DYED YARNS

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

wood dowels, polymer clay, food colors & wool yarn

These 2nd year young ones are having way too much fun dyeing their skeins of wool yarn

 with Wilton cake dyes.

I had them experiment first with very tiny skeins so they could adjust their colorways,

and then I gave them each a large hank of Bulky wool yarn

and away they went!  

Above we have seniors Amber Wu and Kristine Luong,

and below senior Antoniette Jabat is working with that intense dark green color.

Too yummy!

Above are seniors William Kim and Liana Chie taking the more cautious approach  :)

The kids were also required to learn to use the Umbrella Swift and Ball Winder

so that when their gorgeous yarns were dry they could turn them into center pull balls.

By the way,

 the cutie patootie on the far right is junior Shreya Sheth.

Here is the group shot below of all their hard work.

I'm so proud of them.

And what a great way to start the new school year  :)

Close-ups of ...

Antoniettes...

Williams...

and Lianas.

Wait till you see what they are making with their beautiful yarns and needles.

Stay tuned...

Passing On The Fiber Arts

KNITTING NEEDLES AND SOLAR DYED YARNS

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

wood, polymer clay, yarn and food colors

It's really remarkable what you can do with very few supplies to make the Fiber Arts come alive for this next generation.

Lori Lawson of Capistrano Fiber Arts, do you see your three pieces on my display wall??

Here is adorable senior Daphne Chiang hanging her freshly dyed yarns to dye outside the art room door on our handy-dandy branch /wire rack.

Below are Daphne's knitting needles that she has made from scratch and her beautiful yarns are wound and ready for use.

Oh wait, she is using them already.

She's learning to do the knit garter stitch.

A cute close-up.

And then here is hard-working senior Bianca Tolentino mixing her dye solutions from Wilton's cake dyes.

All nice and safe.

Below are her needles and yarns.

She is in the process of casting on.

And a close-up.

And lastly we have colorful senior Kaili Hamada who wrote up a guest post on Monday about how much she loves color this year.

And look at her go, she is done with her knit and purl garter's and is moving on to stockinette.

Sadly, Kaili has lost one of her needles somewhere in the Whitney halls.

Hopefully it shows up soon.

Meet Laarnie and Reis...

the two kids I teach 2nd year 3-d to.  I taught both of them last year in the beginning class and was really impressed with their sense of design, so I encouraged them to come back to me.  They are both juniors, and this is their first assignment of the year.  We used Wilton cake dyes to dye wool yarn with, and set the dye in the microwave with a bit of vinegar (some years I steam the yarns to set the dye)

At the same time they are working with the dyes they are also creating their own knitting needles from dowels and polymer clay.

These are Reis Misaka's yarns and needles...

And here are Laarnie Barcelon's.  

Both where able to choose between knitting a pillow top or a scarf.  So stay turned to see their results.  :)

More Knitting Needles - Student Work

I was going thru my pix and found that I hadn't included senior Phoebe Liu's needles in my post from the other day.  Phoebe is my Art Technician for my 4th period 3-D class.  She took the class in her junior year and we saw a lot of her beautiful work on the blog last school year.  When she has down time she loves to do crafty things.  So she saw the Intermediate 3-D class making their own needles and asked if she could make some as well.  She spent a lot of time getting her clay to move smoothly thru all the rainbow colors.  Then she candy caned that coil around another coil.  Very cool needles knobs Phoebe!    

Handmade Knitting Needles & Hand Dyed Yarns

Here we go, I'm finally getting to this years students, they are doing tremendous work and I really want to show them off.  Let me start with my 2nd year Intermediate 3-D students.  We began the year with Knit Picks Bare Wool of the Andes Bulky, and the kids got one skein each to dye with food colors.  These are some of their yarns above.  They also learned to use an umbrella swift and ball winder.

At the same time they began to build their own knitting needles with polymer knobs.  I gave them doweling to saw into lengths.   They sharpened them on the pencil sharpener and sanded them silky smooth.  They then got to choose a color for their needles.  We used several things for color; watered down acrylic paints, india ink, watercolors, wood stains, and shoe wax  (in several color ways).  After they stained their wood they buffed it to a sheen with a clear quality wood wax.  Thank you dear husband for the use of yours  :)

The needles above were by senior Ashley Chowdhury.

We had many interesting, fun knob shapes.  These here were pretty crazy and created by senior Tiffany Lee.  Fantastic attention to detail Tiff  LOL

Senior Sheila San Agustin striped her needles which I thought was very cool.  In fact, I really liked her geometric design, it reminded me of the knitwear designs by fiber artist Kathryn Alexander here.  

And below we have senior Lauren De Belen who came up with these lovely cherry blossoms on her knobs.

Junior Josh Berger did these super cool sculptural knobs, and below senior Angela Wan made adorable knobs with a Disney theme.

And everyone's favorites where the beauties above by senior Emily Yang who isn't even in the class.  She drops by every 7th period to give me help with my 7th graders since she knows I don't have a T.A.  She expressed an interest in learning to knit and making her own needles, so I worked with her during lunch and off she went creating these gorgeous knobs.  I especially like how she coated them with clear nail polish.

Knit & Crochet - Student Work

It's been a while since you've seen anything from my Intermediate 3-d kids.  This was a beginning of the year assignment that had several components.  If you scroll down the right side and click on Knitting Needles with Polymer Knob you can see the knitting needles the students had to make out of wood dowels and Polymer clay knobs and the wool yarns they dyed with food based colors.  Then I took them thru a basic Knitting Unit where they were required to learn several different stitch patterns using their knitting needles they made and the yarns they dyed.  So cool!!  For their 1st Quarter final the kids had a choice between knitting a scarf or a pillow top/blanket with their goods.     

Above we have the gorgeous pillow top by senior Borah Lim.  In her piece you can see several of the patterns they learned.

This next piece and it's close up were made by junior Nida Fatima.  Nida took it upon herself to teach herself several more patterns so that she could include them in her scarf.

Loved the happy colors in this next top by senior Pauline Yang.  Pauline already had some great knitting skills when she came to me, so she was able to explore more difficult cable patterns in her work. 

This Infinity scarf was knit and designed by 9th grader, yes, 9th grader Karisma Dev, superstar extraordinaire. 

Look closely at her craftsmanship.  So perfect, so beautiful.  And I like how subtle her dyed yarns came out.  Ya did good woman!  

This next one above was done by senior Ingrid Huang.  Love the autumn tones she chose. 

As did senior Johanna Paz.  Learning to knit was very difficult for most of the kids.  In case you haven't tried it, it is a very challenging global skill to learn with a lot of struggle at first.  And the kids don't like to struggle.  But they do like a challenge and the end results, so none of them gave up.  Most of our kids are used to things going fairly smoothly for them.  Huh, junior Rita Labib??  But now that the unit is over I see her in the mornings before school sitting in the halls knitting away.  Cuz once you master a global skill it becomes really fun and enjoyable!!!  Am I right Rita???  LOL

Also notice the crocheted edging that they learned how to do around the outside of all these pieces, another difficult global skill. 

The Start of the New School Year 2010-2011

Woo-Hoo, I'm finally there, I get to start showing off my new students and their art work. I like to begin my Intermediate and Advanced 3-d classes with a fiber unit, so above my 3rd year Advanced kids are learning how to spin their own hand dyed wool roving on a spinning wheel. In the first year class they learned to spin on coat wire hooks I made for them. From left to right are seniors Angeline Tran, Olivia Hill and Breena Jhong. They are spinning on 2 of my Ashford wheels, and my new baby, my Kromski Sonata. My other wheel, my Schaht, is on overnight checkout with senior Brittaney Lee, who over this last summer has become a prolific spinner and is crocheting granny squares with her beautiful hand spun yarns.

My intermediate kids started their fiber unit with handmade knitting needles that they created by sawing up wooden dowels, sandpaper, shoe polish, and Polymer clay knobs. Then I gave them each a skein of Knit Picks Super Wash Merino yarn and they used acid dyes (kool aid and cake frosting pigments) to color them with. The finished products are above and below. The yarns and needles were done by junior Nandi Best. Look at her attention to detail in the patterning she worked out in her knobs, brilliant work! And notice how her yarns flow visually with the colors in her knobs. Those sure would make a swell Xmas present for your favorite teacher, Nandi. Hint , hint. LOL So as always, we are off to a terrific year.